The DISCLOSE Act is Back!

Remember the DISCLOSE Act? Or, as we like to call it, the DISGRACE Act; the one in which the Reid-Pelosi-Obama team attempted to silence small, grassroots groups during elections, including the ones this November. Though it failed to pass in the Senate last month, Harry Reid has decided that he is going to try again. The only thing that stopped it before were the three usual suspects: Senators' Snowe, Collins, and Brown. Reid and Obama are pressuring them hard to change their votes to Yes. We must pressure them harder to continue voting NO.

Here is a refresher course on the DISCLOSE Act:

From our friends at Freedom Action about this speech violating bill --

Even if somehow the speech restrictions in this bill were constitutional, their uneven application would be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection under the law. Even the left-leaning Sierra Club has labeled the DISCLOSE Act a two-tiered system that is "unfair and undemocratic" and that smaller grass-roots organizations would be disadvantaged because they lack the resources to cope with "the additional disclosure burdens." The unions and the big non-profit groups get to keep their free speech given to them in the January Supreme Court decision, but the corporations and small non-profits lose theirs under DISCLOSE.

Also, President Obama and some Democrats are dishonestly stating that the Court's decision would "open the floodgates for special interest, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections." However, current federal law and Federal Election Commission regulations already ban foreign corporations from participating directly or indirectly in American elections. (see 2 U.S.C. § 441e and 2 U.S.C. 437g).

An example of how this bill could affect grass root Tea Party & 9.12 groups:

Exampleville, Ohio has two people running for U.S. Congress-Mr. A and Mr. B-in what promises to be a close race. Exampleville's local Tea Party believes in Mr. B. The Tea Party wants to run ads highlighting Mr. B's stance on cap and trade, federal spending, increased taxation, etc, but they don't have enough money to fulfill the new highly complex reporting requirements from DISCLOSE. And DISCLOSE would force them to list their top donors, even if they are not necessarily the specific donors to the ads, in their ads. Besides, the disclaimers required could take up to 14 of a 30 second ad. The Tea Party gives up trying to run ads to support Mr. Republican.

In contrast, Mr. A has some well-funded unions who want to see Exampleville's factories unionized, so the unions run ads against Mr. B and ads for Mr. A. Also, the Sierra Club and the ACLU (groups actually opposed to DISCLOSE) want Mr. A to support their issues, so they also run ads for Mr. A. None of these ads are subject to DISCLOSE's requirements.Guess who wins?

(For those interested, here's a good link with information on the actual language and problems with the DISCLOSE bill, click here: www.gop.gov/bill/111/2/hr5175)

Remind them that the DISCLOSE Act exempts unions and very large special interest groups!! And the little guy is left without a voice.

We must start putting pressure on these three Senators, and tell them to vote NO. This is SO important as the Left is running scared and are trying to minimize our efforts and impact this November.

Please call the following Senators:

Scott Brown (R-MA)
http://scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactme
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-4543, (F) (202) 228-2646

Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-5344, Toll free (800) 432-1599, (F) (202) 224-1946

Susan Collins (R-ME)
http://collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorCollins.EmailIssue&CFID=42880122&CFTOKEN=39747274
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-2523, (F) (202) 224-2693